OCTOBER 22nd - To Play or Not to Play



So you’re the best hockey player in the world playing for the team in the largest city in America. Your incredibly attractive wife is sitting rink side to cheer you on. Life could be worse. But then a hard check occurred resulting in a large piece of plexi-glass falling on your incredibly attractive wife, cutting her lip and concussing her brain. There are six minutes left in the game. Your team is down by 1 goal. What do you do? I’m not just throwing hypotheticals at you, here. This exact scenario snuck up on Wayne Gretzky, on this day in 1997 when the New York Rangers were playing Chicago Blackhawks. So what did The Great One do? He played the concerned husband. He went to Janet’s side and stayed there for several minutes, before returning to the bench as team doctors attended to her before taking her to the hospital. Gretzky then went back in the game and finished the final six minutes and eighteen seconds. I can feel your judgement. But hey, his nickname didn’t refer to how great of husband he was. They always say, do one thing well. And I’ll have you know that Janet and Wayne are still married in 2014, an eternity in sports/Hollywood marriages. The story would be a lot cooler if he’d gone in and tied the game, but the Rangers lost and Gretzky went to the hospital. I just wonder how that conversation went:

The Great One: “You said you were fine, honey.”
Janet: “I was hit by a sheet of glass.”
The Great One: “Plexi-glass.”
Janet: “I was bleeding.”
The Great One: “Barely.”
Janet: “I had a concussion.”
The Great One: “Mild one. And you said I could stay and play.”
Janet: “I also said you were better looking than Lemieux.”
The Great One: “Low blow.”
Janet: “Jackass.”
Janet: “Did you at least win?”
The Great One: “No.”
Janet: “Jackass.”

Or maybe Janet knew that you don’t get a nickname like The Great One if you leave a game every time your incredibly attractive wife takes a sheet of glass to the dome and wasn't the slightest bit perturbed. Even so, I’ll bet Wayne would have liked to have scored, because if you’re gonna keep playing after your incredibly attractive takes a sheet of glass to the dome, you should at least win the game. Live and learn.

This day has been Marked.

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